I admire the work of both of you. I’ve really learnt a lot and you have changed my way of thinking about many, many things, even outside climate space. I know it may sound weird, I am just some random guy from some obscure place, but it is what is. 🙃 That’s the power of the internet. Anyway, thank you for the substack, I will be following closely and I will also consider some subscription fee if you keep your fantastic work coming. One question: why the binary framing in the manifesto? Haven’t you been insisting that it’s not some do or die exercise, but a question of degrees of how bad it’s going to get?
There are gradations of bad, and saying "disaster" is not the same as the end of the world, human extinction, or other implausible outcomes. But I think its safe to say that if we keep emitting CO2 at today's levels it will spell disaster for many human and natural systems.
Certainly the outcome is not binary and what we've been doing is muddling between the worst- and best-case outcomes. If you don't like this phrasing, you can think of the two brinks as the limiting cases of what our outcomes will look like and our goal to be to get as close to the 'best case' as possible.
I hope your science is better than your style-choices. "Navigating between two brinks" is fine for situations described in times bygone as "between Scylla and Charybdis"- In classical mythology, Scylla was a horrible six-headed monster who lived on a rock on one side of a narrow strait. Charybdis was a whirlpool on the other side. When ships passed close to Scylla's rock in order to avoid Charybdis, she would seize and devour their sailors. In short: two BAD things, and you must steer a careful course in the middle.
While you write about "either very bad or all-smiles A-okay". Kindergarten-Kids could tell you where to steer to.
Reality looks potentially much more Scylla and Charybdis: Either too much warming (et al.) too fast OR economic stagnation/depression by "last generation"-Gretas panickly strangling both economic growth (growth saves many lifes. less growth saves less, recessions kill) AND research (grants for geo-engineering research anyone? Bans more likely. - How many fusion-reactors are being built presently? Oh, one. Better than zero, I admit. - Greta&friends endorsing GM-food? Surprisingly not. )
I think this idea of a brink, or a limited time we need to act to prevent disaster is problematic because it promotes despair. It seems reasonable to me that 4C of temperature rise is better than 5C, 3C is better than 4C, and 2C is better than 3C. Whatever we do will help, and the more, the faster, the better. I've been interested in this issue for nearly 2 decades and I note that early projection of future temperatures has shown concave up profiles. But the data I have seen has been linear. The effect of greenhouse gases is logarithmic, and if the rise in greenhouse gas is exponential a linear temperature response is expected, and is what has been seen for nearly five decades. If you just extrapolate the observations forward to 2100 you get 2.5 C. Heck if you extapolate CO2 trends forward and use the result from Mannabe and Weatherill's 1967 paper you get around 2.4 C (and this is a 55 yo prediction). I think when the dust settles, there will be no concave upward trend, but just this linear one.
My own belief is major movement on this issue in the US won't come until the 2030's. The reason is this issue did not become a thing until the end of the 1980's at which time those born in the late sixties were coming of age. When people that age and younger come to power, I expect we will have majorities of people in power who will perceive a need to act and will then do so. Right now those in power were born in 1960 or later. Each year that date will move up nearly on year, until the majority will have been born in the 1970's or later.
That said, blogs like yours are critical to forming the belief system in America's youth so that action is taken in the 2030's. Otherwise, we will see that concave up profile and the majority of the world that has yet to industrialize does so.
I think our message is more nuanced than that. It's not just that we're on the brink of super bad impacts, but we're also on the brink of the solution (cheap climate-safe energy). To me, that's a hopeful message.
I agree - the solutions offered are incredible - in the sense of not being credible.
"we can get to, say, a 90% clean-energy grid and pay costs comparable to what we’re paying today with existing technology."
I'd appreciate a little explanation of this claim. Aside from the fact that no responsible organization has articulated a path to reach this objective, there are two obstacles that are, as far as I've heard, essentially unsolvable:
1. Wind generation is extremely unreliable. The German energy agency studied wind use in the grid back in 2006, and concluded that, for reliability purposes, at large volumes, the grid can only rely on 5% of installed wind generating capacity. This means that, if you install 1000 MW of wind generating capacity, it can displace 5 MW of conventional dispatchable capacity. So, 2500 large wind turbines don't provide enough reliable generating capacity to displace one smaller peaking gas turbine. (https://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/events/2006_grid/Martin_Hoppe.pdf, p. 12). At the least, we'll have to build and maintain enough conventional generating capacity to meet 100% of requirements, no matter how much wind capacity we build. Not all of this conventional capacity will have to operate all the time, but the cost of building and maintaining it has to be considered part of the cost of a wind system.
2. Solar generation doesn't operate all day. In order to keep the lights on at night, we'd need massive storage capacity - something like 55 million megawatt-hours to get the US through an average night. Essentially none of this capacity currently exists. If we provide it with lithium ion batteries, we'd need to increase worldwide lithium production by at least two orders of magnitude in order to make enough batteries within 10 years. We'd need similar production increases of lead or nickel if we use that technology. Currently, there are 30,000 megawatt-hours of installed battery storage in the US, with another 160,000 forecast to be installed by 2026. At this point, we'll approach one half of one percent of required storage. And this storage is not cheap - it would cost trillions of dollars to cover the US, maybe tens of trillions. And this cost would have to be paid every 5-10 years, because batteries will last that long before they won't hold a charge.
This is based on current electric energy usage in the US. It doesn't address the additional challenges of switching transportation, heating, and industrial processes to electric energy in order to eliminate fossil fuel use. It doesn't address the challenges of trying to install US storage at the same time the Europeans would need to install a similar amount of storage to get themselves to a carbon-free system. It doesn't address the cost of electric cars, which would have to be much more expensive than the gasoline-powered cars they'd replace.
I don't claim that such things are impossible. But the physical challenges are very large. I don't think it's remotely credible to claim that it can be done without greatly increasing the cost of everything related to energy.
I've also read the Berkeley report. It does claim that electricity prices for renewables would be similar to current prices. But, it bases this claim on projected costs from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) reports. These reports are explicit: "Financial assumptions include financial effects of selected laws and regulatory regimes that are currently in effect." (https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2022/definitions#policiesandregulations) In other words, electricity prices are comparable with current levels of subsidies from state and federal governments. I won't address the advisability of current subsidies, but I will point out that massively increasing renewables will require massive increases in subsidies, which will have to be paid by someone. We can't subsidize ourselves to affordable energy, because we have to pay the subsidies.
The Berkeley report also claims that very little storage will be required, because gas generation will fill in demand during days with low wind and solar output. This will require maintaining a large gas generation fleet (minimum 400,000 MW, vs. current installed capacity of 500,000 MW). Maintaining this equipment is a cost which would not show up in the Levelized Cost of Energy estimate. But, I think the intermittency problem is larger than the Berkeley report recognizes. The German experience noted above suggests that a lot more conventional would be needed. The Berkeley analysis may be right, but I don't have confidence in it without the clear acceptance from anyone who's ever run an electricity grid and dealt with wind as a component of that grid.
Even taking their estimate of battery storage requirements (600,000 MWh), the cost is far from trivial. Cost in 2020 was about $350 per KWh, or $210 billion for 600,000 MWh).
Their model seems to assume that batteries will be discharged and recharged daily, which would wear the batteries out in about 1-2 years. So, the batteries alone would increase energy costs by at least $100 billion per year.
Further, energy density of lithium batteries is about 250 Wh/kg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery), so 600,000 MWh would require 2.4 million tons of batteries. Of this mass, 7% (168,000 tons) is lithium metal. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844019347012#:~:text=By%20weight%20percentage%20(g%20material,%25%20other%20materials%20%5B10%5D.) Current lithium production is about 130,000 tons per year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/606684/world-production-of-lithium/). So, we'd need to take nearly all worldwide production of lithium to make the US grid batteries, and we'd need to do it forever. This doesn't address the lithium needed for other countries' storage requirements, or for electric vehicles. And this assumes that the Berkeley study is realistic, which I seriously doubt. It's certainly possible that we could increase lithium production to meet this requirement, but I'd have a lot more confidence in studies like this if they'd at least acknowledge the issue. I'd have even more confidence if they'd take a try at estimating how the issue could be addressed.
But I think we're a long way from being able to say that the problems are clearly solvable at reasonably low cost.
Thanks for the response. I had seen the Princeton report before. Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't address intermittency at all - it may be hidden in the modelling, but the materials published don't say so. The report identifies 5 "pathways" to a net-zero energy system, but doesn't, as far as I can tell, address the technical or economic feasibility of any of them. The summary makes no mention of storage, aside from storage and sequestration of carbon. The full report includes 5 to 15 GW (not GW-hours) of storage (p. 72). This amount is not useful to back up generation; it appears as storage to stabilize the grid in the event a renewable generation plant goes off line unexpectedly.
The report identifies $2.5 trillion of required investment to achieve the "E+" pathways (page 75 of the summary). None of this is for energy storage.
"All pathways rely on large-scale CO2 capture and utilization or storage." (Page 10 of the summary). It makes no claim that such capture and storage is feasible, and does not estimate the cost - it simply notes that it is a requirement for all 5 pathways. The footnote on page 75 notes that cost estimate does not include costs of "establishing enhanced land sinks" for carbon sequestration.
I haven't seen the 2035 report before; I'll read it with interest. But in the meantime, perhaps I'm having trouble following the Princeton report. Could you give me a couple of specifics in the report that address any of:
1) the cost of maintaining a dispatchable energy system in addition to the renewable system to be built.
2) the size, cost, and feasibility of a storage system to cover power requirements to fill in for outages of intermittent generation
3) the feasibility of increasing battery material production to build the storage system, if batteries are the technology of choice
4) if batteries are not the storage technology of choice, what is that technology, and what would be the issues in implementation (land use, water, capital cost, etc).
Without addressing any of these concepts, the "pathways" don't constitute a plan in any meaningful sense.
I think you need to read these reports carefully. Both of them describe grids that produce reliable, cheap power. The Berkeley study posits a 90% clean grid where natural gas provides the backup for intermittency, which is where the 10% of emissions come from. The net-zero America study uses different scenarios, some with batteries to cover that last 10%, others take different approaches. But, to emphasize, both studies estimate energy prices consistent with historical values but much lower emissions.
I'm sorry, but I can't help wondering whether you read these reports. As far as I can tell, the Princeton study doesn't address energy prices at all. The summary includes a line on page 10 "Annualized energy spending across the full 30-year transition as a fraction of GDP is similar to spending levels experienced during recent prosperous periods", but this claim doesn't seem credible if a key part of the pathway (carbon sequestration) is explicitly excluded from the analysis.
Hi! I'm here to be your loyal opposition from the Left. Since we have trudged through decades of denialism by the right-wing, I worry that our discourse on this issue has become too reactive and rhetorically impotent. I hope that I won't be annoying to you, but at the same time, I'm deeply invested in the project of moving from a liberal environmentalism to one a socialist environmentalism.
For example, in this article, say "we can largely decarbonize our economy using existing technologies." But you don't mention the fact that we WON'T do so. Why won't we?
Because of the power of oil and gas companies. To earn our renewable future, we must *destroy the political power of oil companies,* which entails a direct confrontation with the military-industrial complex and a class struggle against elite capitalists. Without that, it doesn't matter how cheap solar panels get -- they won't *let us* decarbonize the economy, because oil is in control of the decision-making.
If you wish to step back from the brink, you must refocus your attention away from technologies and data and towards antiracist, anti-imperialist class war.
I agree with you! As I tell my students, climate change is not a technical or scientific problem, it’s a political problem. That said, everyone has to pick a “lane” and I don’t want to advocate for particular solutions, just make sure people understand the problem is solvable.
we're on the same page here. But what do you think accounts for the dominance of your "lane" over the entire discourse about climate change? If it is not a technical or scientific problem, then why do technical and scientific ways of knowing dominate all discussion of it? Perhaps you believe this was a wise countermove against the oil-funded denialism campaign?
Not sure what you mean here. I don’t think my lane has any dominance in the debate — it’s just what I have decided I’m going to talk about. It’s the intersection of my interests and my particular expertise.
I admire the work of both of you. I’ve really learnt a lot and you have changed my way of thinking about many, many things, even outside climate space. I know it may sound weird, I am just some random guy from some obscure place, but it is what is. 🙃 That’s the power of the internet. Anyway, thank you for the substack, I will be following closely and I will also consider some subscription fee if you keep your fantastic work coming. One question: why the binary framing in the manifesto? Haven’t you been insisting that it’s not some do or die exercise, but a question of degrees of how bad it’s going to get?
There are gradations of bad, and saying "disaster" is not the same as the end of the world, human extinction, or other implausible outcomes. But I think its safe to say that if we keep emitting CO2 at today's levels it will spell disaster for many human and natural systems.
Certainly the outcome is not binary and what we've been doing is muddling between the worst- and best-case outcomes. If you don't like this phrasing, you can think of the two brinks as the limiting cases of what our outcomes will look like and our goal to be to get as close to the 'best case' as possible.
I hope your science is better than your style-choices. "Navigating between two brinks" is fine for situations described in times bygone as "between Scylla and Charybdis"- In classical mythology, Scylla was a horrible six-headed monster who lived on a rock on one side of a narrow strait. Charybdis was a whirlpool on the other side. When ships passed close to Scylla's rock in order to avoid Charybdis, she would seize and devour their sailors. In short: two BAD things, and you must steer a careful course in the middle.
While you write about "either very bad or all-smiles A-okay". Kindergarten-Kids could tell you where to steer to.
Reality looks potentially much more Scylla and Charybdis: Either too much warming (et al.) too fast OR economic stagnation/depression by "last generation"-Gretas panickly strangling both economic growth (growth saves many lifes. less growth saves less, recessions kill) AND research (grants for geo-engineering research anyone? Bans more likely. - How many fusion-reactors are being built presently? Oh, one. Better than zero, I admit. - Greta&friends endorsing GM-food? Surprisingly not. )
I think this idea of a brink, or a limited time we need to act to prevent disaster is problematic because it promotes despair. It seems reasonable to me that 4C of temperature rise is better than 5C, 3C is better than 4C, and 2C is better than 3C. Whatever we do will help, and the more, the faster, the better. I've been interested in this issue for nearly 2 decades and I note that early projection of future temperatures has shown concave up profiles. But the data I have seen has been linear. The effect of greenhouse gases is logarithmic, and if the rise in greenhouse gas is exponential a linear temperature response is expected, and is what has been seen for nearly five decades. If you just extrapolate the observations forward to 2100 you get 2.5 C. Heck if you extapolate CO2 trends forward and use the result from Mannabe and Weatherill's 1967 paper you get around 2.4 C (and this is a 55 yo prediction). I think when the dust settles, there will be no concave upward trend, but just this linear one.
My own belief is major movement on this issue in the US won't come until the 2030's. The reason is this issue did not become a thing until the end of the 1980's at which time those born in the late sixties were coming of age. When people that age and younger come to power, I expect we will have majorities of people in power who will perceive a need to act and will then do so. Right now those in power were born in 1960 or later. Each year that date will move up nearly on year, until the majority will have been born in the 1970's or later.
That said, blogs like yours are critical to forming the belief system in America's youth so that action is taken in the 2030's. Otherwise, we will see that concave up profile and the majority of the world that has yet to industrialize does so.
I think our message is more nuanced than that. It's not just that we're on the brink of super bad impacts, but we're also on the brink of the solution (cheap climate-safe energy). To me, that's a hopeful message.
"we are on the brink of incredible solutions"
I agree - the solutions offered are incredible - in the sense of not being credible.
"we can get to, say, a 90% clean-energy grid and pay costs comparable to what we’re paying today with existing technology."
I'd appreciate a little explanation of this claim. Aside from the fact that no responsible organization has articulated a path to reach this objective, there are two obstacles that are, as far as I've heard, essentially unsolvable:
1. Wind generation is extremely unreliable. The German energy agency studied wind use in the grid back in 2006, and concluded that, for reliability purposes, at large volumes, the grid can only rely on 5% of installed wind generating capacity. This means that, if you install 1000 MW of wind generating capacity, it can displace 5 MW of conventional dispatchable capacity. So, 2500 large wind turbines don't provide enough reliable generating capacity to displace one smaller peaking gas turbine. (https://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/events/2006_grid/Martin_Hoppe.pdf, p. 12). At the least, we'll have to build and maintain enough conventional generating capacity to meet 100% of requirements, no matter how much wind capacity we build. Not all of this conventional capacity will have to operate all the time, but the cost of building and maintaining it has to be considered part of the cost of a wind system.
2. Solar generation doesn't operate all day. In order to keep the lights on at night, we'd need massive storage capacity - something like 55 million megawatt-hours to get the US through an average night. Essentially none of this capacity currently exists. If we provide it with lithium ion batteries, we'd need to increase worldwide lithium production by at least two orders of magnitude in order to make enough batteries within 10 years. We'd need similar production increases of lead or nickel if we use that technology. Currently, there are 30,000 megawatt-hours of installed battery storage in the US, with another 160,000 forecast to be installed by 2026. At this point, we'll approach one half of one percent of required storage. And this storage is not cheap - it would cost trillions of dollars to cover the US, maybe tens of trillions. And this cost would have to be paid every 5-10 years, because batteries will last that long before they won't hold a charge.
This is based on current electric energy usage in the US. It doesn't address the additional challenges of switching transportation, heating, and industrial processes to electric energy in order to eliminate fossil fuel use. It doesn't address the challenges of trying to install US storage at the same time the Europeans would need to install a similar amount of storage to get themselves to a carbon-free system. It doesn't address the cost of electric cars, which would have to be much more expensive than the gasoline-powered cars they'd replace.
I don't claim that such things are impossible. But the physical challenges are very large. I don't think it's remotely credible to claim that it can be done without greatly increasing the cost of everything related to energy.
The statement that we can largely switch to renewable energy is take from these reports:
https://www.2035report.com/electricity/
https://netzeroamerica.princeton.edu/the-report
If you read them, you’ll find that the problems you described as “unsolvable” are all actually solvable at reasonably low cost.
I've also read the Berkeley report. It does claim that electricity prices for renewables would be similar to current prices. But, it bases this claim on projected costs from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) reports. These reports are explicit: "Financial assumptions include financial effects of selected laws and regulatory regimes that are currently in effect." (https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2022/definitions#policiesandregulations) In other words, electricity prices are comparable with current levels of subsidies from state and federal governments. I won't address the advisability of current subsidies, but I will point out that massively increasing renewables will require massive increases in subsidies, which will have to be paid by someone. We can't subsidize ourselves to affordable energy, because we have to pay the subsidies.
The Berkeley report also claims that very little storage will be required, because gas generation will fill in demand during days with low wind and solar output. This will require maintaining a large gas generation fleet (minimum 400,000 MW, vs. current installed capacity of 500,000 MW). Maintaining this equipment is a cost which would not show up in the Levelized Cost of Energy estimate. But, I think the intermittency problem is larger than the Berkeley report recognizes. The German experience noted above suggests that a lot more conventional would be needed. The Berkeley analysis may be right, but I don't have confidence in it without the clear acceptance from anyone who's ever run an electricity grid and dealt with wind as a component of that grid.
Even taking their estimate of battery storage requirements (600,000 MWh), the cost is far from trivial. Cost in 2020 was about $350 per KWh, or $210 billion for 600,000 MWh).
Their model seems to assume that batteries will be discharged and recharged daily, which would wear the batteries out in about 1-2 years. So, the batteries alone would increase energy costs by at least $100 billion per year.
Further, energy density of lithium batteries is about 250 Wh/kg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery), so 600,000 MWh would require 2.4 million tons of batteries. Of this mass, 7% (168,000 tons) is lithium metal. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844019347012#:~:text=By%20weight%20percentage%20(g%20material,%25%20other%20materials%20%5B10%5D.) Current lithium production is about 130,000 tons per year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/606684/world-production-of-lithium/). So, we'd need to take nearly all worldwide production of lithium to make the US grid batteries, and we'd need to do it forever. This doesn't address the lithium needed for other countries' storage requirements, or for electric vehicles. And this assumes that the Berkeley study is realistic, which I seriously doubt. It's certainly possible that we could increase lithium production to meet this requirement, but I'd have a lot more confidence in studies like this if they'd at least acknowledge the issue. I'd have even more confidence if they'd take a try at estimating how the issue could be addressed.
But I think we're a long way from being able to say that the problems are clearly solvable at reasonably low cost.
Thanks for the response. I had seen the Princeton report before. Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't address intermittency at all - it may be hidden in the modelling, but the materials published don't say so. The report identifies 5 "pathways" to a net-zero energy system, but doesn't, as far as I can tell, address the technical or economic feasibility of any of them. The summary makes no mention of storage, aside from storage and sequestration of carbon. The full report includes 5 to 15 GW (not GW-hours) of storage (p. 72). This amount is not useful to back up generation; it appears as storage to stabilize the grid in the event a renewable generation plant goes off line unexpectedly.
The report identifies $2.5 trillion of required investment to achieve the "E+" pathways (page 75 of the summary). None of this is for energy storage.
"All pathways rely on large-scale CO2 capture and utilization or storage." (Page 10 of the summary). It makes no claim that such capture and storage is feasible, and does not estimate the cost - it simply notes that it is a requirement for all 5 pathways. The footnote on page 75 notes that cost estimate does not include costs of "establishing enhanced land sinks" for carbon sequestration.
I haven't seen the 2035 report before; I'll read it with interest. But in the meantime, perhaps I'm having trouble following the Princeton report. Could you give me a couple of specifics in the report that address any of:
1) the cost of maintaining a dispatchable energy system in addition to the renewable system to be built.
2) the size, cost, and feasibility of a storage system to cover power requirements to fill in for outages of intermittent generation
3) the feasibility of increasing battery material production to build the storage system, if batteries are the technology of choice
4) if batteries are not the storage technology of choice, what is that technology, and what would be the issues in implementation (land use, water, capital cost, etc).
Without addressing any of these concepts, the "pathways" don't constitute a plan in any meaningful sense.
I think you need to read these reports carefully. Both of them describe grids that produce reliable, cheap power. The Berkeley study posits a 90% clean grid where natural gas provides the backup for intermittency, which is where the 10% of emissions come from. The net-zero America study uses different scenarios, some with batteries to cover that last 10%, others take different approaches. But, to emphasize, both studies estimate energy prices consistent with historical values but much lower emissions.
I'm sorry, but I can't help wondering whether you read these reports. As far as I can tell, the Princeton study doesn't address energy prices at all. The summary includes a line on page 10 "Annualized energy spending across the full 30-year transition as a fraction of GDP is similar to spending levels experienced during recent prosperous periods", but this claim doesn't seem credible if a key part of the pathway (carbon sequestration) is explicitly excluded from the analysis.
Hi! I'm here to be your loyal opposition from the Left. Since we have trudged through decades of denialism by the right-wing, I worry that our discourse on this issue has become too reactive and rhetorically impotent. I hope that I won't be annoying to you, but at the same time, I'm deeply invested in the project of moving from a liberal environmentalism to one a socialist environmentalism.
For example, in this article, say "we can largely decarbonize our economy using existing technologies." But you don't mention the fact that we WON'T do so. Why won't we?
Because of the power of oil and gas companies. To earn our renewable future, we must *destroy the political power of oil companies,* which entails a direct confrontation with the military-industrial complex and a class struggle against elite capitalists. Without that, it doesn't matter how cheap solar panels get -- they won't *let us* decarbonize the economy, because oil is in control of the decision-making.
If you wish to step back from the brink, you must refocus your attention away from technologies and data and towards antiracist, anti-imperialist class war.
I agree with you! As I tell my students, climate change is not a technical or scientific problem, it’s a political problem. That said, everyone has to pick a “lane” and I don’t want to advocate for particular solutions, just make sure people understand the problem is solvable.
we're on the same page here. But what do you think accounts for the dominance of your "lane" over the entire discourse about climate change? If it is not a technical or scientific problem, then why do technical and scientific ways of knowing dominate all discussion of it? Perhaps you believe this was a wise countermove against the oil-funded denialism campaign?
Not sure what you mean here. I don’t think my lane has any dominance in the debate — it’s just what I have decided I’m going to talk about. It’s the intersection of my interests and my particular expertise.
Got it. It can be hard to see ideology from within.